Data gathered by the International Maritime Organisation -sanctioned ship reporting system implemented at Port Klang with the installation of the Vessel Traffic System recently,

 recorded a total traffic movement of 59,314 vessels last year.

Confirming that containerships are the largest group of vessels that use the world’s most important and crowded Straits of Malacca, the Director-General of Marine Department, Raja Datuk Malik Saripulazan, urged shipping lines to keep the littoral states advised on the development of the bigger postpanamax and super post panamax containerships.
 
“We are naturally concerned that containerships, which have specific deadlines to meet, are moving in large numbers and fast in the Straits which reports a daily movement of about 600 vessels. We are concerned with the news on the proposed “malacamax” which could have a capacity to carry more than 12,000 TEUs” he said.
 
Container ships traffic in the Straits make up more than 30 per cent of the vessel traffic, demolishing a long held view that tankers were the main users of the straits.
 
Raja Datuk Malik said the increase in the movement of containerships in the Straits was consistent with shipping and port developments in the region as reflected in the emergence of new ports like Pelabuhan Tanjung Pelepas, Westport, at Port Klang as well as increased vessel traffic noted by Northport in Port Klang and Singapore port. In the last four years vessel traffic at Northport recorded 3.89 per cent jump from 7,824 vessels in 1988 to 8,129 vessels in 2001.
 
Data gathered by the International Maritime Organisation-sanctioned ship reporting system implemented at Port Klang with the installation of the Vessel Traffic System recently, recorded a total traffic movement of 59,314 vessels last year.
 
Raja Datuk Malik, disclosed this at a tea-talk organized by Northport. According to Raja Datuk Malik the data gathered for the first quarter of this year also revealed that containerships still account for 33 per cent of the total vessel traffic in the Straits, thus confirming the trend the changes in the composition of traffic.
 
Vessel traffic movement in the Straits of Malacca is governed by the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS), the longest ship routing system in the world that provides for separate lanes for ships moving southbound and northbound.